Financial Transaction Tax

On 14
February 2013, Algirdas Šemeta, EU Commissioner for Taxation and Customs Union,
Audit and Anti-Fraud, presented the proposal on a Financial Transaction Tax to
be applied by 11 Member States of the EU. This tax will be implemented through
an enhanced cooperation and will deliver around 30 to 35 billion Euro a year.
It is an important step that will not only strengthen the single market, but
will also be the first tax of this nature to be implemented at a regional
level. In practice, the proposal is close to the original FTT blueprint and
provides that any transactions having an economic link with the FTT zone will
be subject to the tax. The Financial Transaction Tax comes as a response to a
long standing demand by the European Citizens and finally satisfies the
numerous voices that have claimed that the speculative activities which were
the main cause of the crisis did not suffer the consequences.